1966 Ford Mustang - Developmental

We reached a conclusion after shooting this car: The United States needs more traffic circles. Traffic circles, or roundabouts, as the Brits call them, are far more popular in Europe than here. They are built where a confluence of streets meet; instead of an intersection with traffic lights and turn lanes, a big ring of asphalt is poured, allowing astute drivers to merge into and out of the circle along their desired path.

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Traffic circles are cool for several reasons, and among them, they keep traffic moving more efficiently than stoplights and turn arrows do. More relevant to our audience, though, they are a lot of fun to drive through. Case in point, Shaun Burgess needed only to go a couple blocks from his house to demonstrate the handling prowess of his '66 Mustang. Traffic was sparse as he approached the circle at a high rate of speed. Stabbing the brakes to set the chassis, he deftly negotiated the circle in a classic out-in-out driving line, clipping the apex on my side of the car then hugging the inside line through the turn. The Mustang stayed flat and planted as we tore through the circle, exiting at a street 270 degrees from where we entered.

Shaun lives in the boundary area where rural Michigan meets the Detroit suburbs, so there are several circles near his house, and we're guessing he hit them all during our drive to shoot these pictures, and the smiles on our faces only grew bigger each time.

Why does Shaun's Mustang negotiate corners so well? He's the owner of a suspension company, that's why. He founded Street or Track nearly 10 years ago. With a background in product design and engineering, he began making suspension and brake parts to get this Mustang to run better at the open track events he participated in. As his car got faster, people took notice and asked him to make the same parts for their cars, too. "My first part was the adjustable strut rods,” Shaun says. Tubular front control arms followed, with a coilover shock system close behind. Now, Shaun's company offers complete front and rear suspension and brake packages for early Mustangs, and all of them were developed at his home garage and tested on this car on tracks throughout the Midwest (and California before he moved to Michigan), as well as on the traffic circles near his house.

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We can attest to their effectiveness. Shaun's Mustang handled as well as any car we've been in, and nearly a year later, we still vividly recall blasting through those Michigan traffic circles at speeds that would have sent most sports cars skidding into the weeds.

Who: Shaun BurgessWhat: 1966 Ford MustangWhere: West Bloomfield, Michigan, number 37 of Money magazine's Top 100 Small Cities in 2012.

Engine: Though it's had several rebuilds under its belt, the car's original 289 has proven to be a tough, reliable competitor during all of the track events it's been subjected to. Shaun ported the heads and added a Comp 270 Magnum cam, a Weiand Stealth intake manifold, and a 600-cfm Edelbrock carburetor. The combination is good for 300 hp, which sounds like small potatoes these days, but remember this coupe is light, and road-course cars don't necessarily need monster horsepower numbers.

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Transmission: Shaun rows through the gears in Ford's venerable Top Loader four-speed.

Rearend: A Street or Track–built, full-floating 9-inch is out back. Shaun has two different centersections for it, one with 3.50:1 gears and another with 4.11:1 gears, both on Eaton Truetrac differentials. He switches one for the other, depending on which racetrack he's driving on.

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Exhaust: Hooker Competition headers dump into a 21⁄2-inch exhaust system with a cross-pipe and Flowmaster Delta 40 mufflers, ending in turndowns just in front of the rear axle.

Suspension: The front and rear suspension consist entirely of parts Shaun developed. They include tubular upper and lower front control arms, and a three-link rear system that consists of lower trailing arms and a Watt's link. The coilover shocks are built by Bilstein to Shaun's specification and are available with either sport or race valving. Both front and rear suspension pieces are fully adjustable for alignment, pinion angle, roll center, and instant center.

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Brakes: The front and rear brakes are also Shaun's design. On the front are 13x11⁄4 rotors, while 113⁄4x0.810-inch rotors are on the rear. Cool side note: The rotors are cast and final-finished here in the USA. They are gripped by forged aluminum four-piston calipers with stainless-steel pistons for added durability. The rotors bolt to an aluminum hat, so they are lighter and less prone to warping. Plus, the two-piece design allows them to be serviceable separately. Shaun runs cooling ducts to the front rotors, which feed cool air through the front valance panel.

Interior: Inside Shaun's Mustang, it is race-car simple with just a couple of race seats, a tach, and no frills.

News Flash: Since our shoot last summer, Shaun has changed the car a bit. Gone is the 289. In its place is a Ford Racing 363. He also swapped out the Toploader for a sweet-shifting Jerico transmission. Also new are 18-inch wheels, a rear mini-tub job, and a full rollcage. Want us to revisit this cool road-race Mustang? Send us an email at CarCraft@CarCraft.com.